If these people do kill us, I’m trying to picture my missing person’s report. … It’s nice to be missed.

Josh and I were invited here after meeting Melissa at one of our shows, at a coffee shop. We were talking about immortality and I guess she decided we were vampire material, so she invited us here, to their clan’s house, for some kind of initiation party. All I know is we’re surrounded by people who are claiming they’re vampires.

I get up and head to the bathroom, noticing a ’Nosferatu’ poster on the wall near the door. Whoever these people are, they‘re pretty serious about something.

Josh is out there sitting on the couch with ‘Aurele,‘ their self proclaimed leader. I (show the heavy bolt of the door) bolt the door to the bathroom and lean against the door. This is all a bit much to take in.

I think about who would care that I go missing. Who would come looking for me, and why. Really, what more can you ask for in this world than to have people come to your rescue when you’re being held captive by vampires?

The first thing they’ll check is when and where I was last seen or heard from…

I haven’t been around. I know this. I’ve been trying to build, to… to get back here. Where have I been? The truth is, I need to live on a construction site… to be able to knock down buildings and build new ones. All the time. Maybe a reconstruction site, that might be a better name. And if I’m not in that place, I need to do everything I can to get there. So, hopefully I was last seen driving a Caterpillar.

How did we get to this place? This room full of oldyoung eyes, beckoning us to join their ranks, apparently ready to sink in teeth and draw blood, ready to drink in a million thirsty eyes and when the morning comes, redeyed, still prepared to drink the sunrise? (They told us they were the type of vampire who had no aversion to the sun.)

I’m hungry to misinterpret a quote. “I was a vegetarian until I started leaning towards the sunlight.^{^[1]}”

Yes m’am, I understand you’re looking for your sun. Can you tell us any likely destinations he may have been headed towards? Any favorite places or places with past connections for him?

(drawing: kind of buzzing letters) Chicago! I can’t wait for the night. There it’s like a word you can’t think of that knows everything… You nuzzle against it, your head buzzing like the world’s greatest wines uncorked for an evening of whatever you could imagine, as long as you imagine something good. What do you want to do? This city is ours. It’s our home. These buildings beams are our surrogate bones. Every glow from a window or a streetlight or a moon is a beautiful stranger’s eye looking friendly, one who knows who you are and you know it. I could live in this city.

As I’m brushing my teeth, the radio is playing. It’s that song that sains^{^[2]}, “I’ll stop the world and melt with you.” The song kind of freaks me out a tiny bit, having dealt with threats of ego-death. But this morning I’m feeling as whole as I can.

There’s this radio station in this city called ‘The Arch.’ 106.5 on the dial. It’s owned by Simon Archer, if that’s his real name. He has little spots where he makes quips non sequitur fashion, normally pop culture or music references, like “If the sky is ‘a hazy shade of winter^{^[3]},’ it‘s time to put away the white pants.”

They also have this program note where the announcer asks, “What is the Arch?” and then they play little clips from three or so songs right next to each other, bits of a variety that have some kind of glue between them… a flavor demarcating the station supposedly, to which the announcer decrees, “Yeah, that’s pretty much it,” answering the original question. It’s a metaphysical experience really. But then, most experiences involving music are.

I’d been going crazy in months past. I’ve been wondering how to stay sane. That‘s the goal, sanity. I mean, ideally.

I think sanity is something like that group of three clips from different songs that somehow fit together and form an idea of the station, and the station that you’re listening to and is something you want to be listening to and keep listening to is a stable mind. They feel held with a certain type of glue… and they’re in the right range of broadcast. And hopefully they’re good songs.

I finish brushing my teeth and turn off the radio in the bathroom, then head into the living room where the entertainment center radio is playing. The song on now is ‘Big Yellow Taxi’, the remade version by the Counting Crows (with Vanessa Carlton^{^[4]}). The lyrics, “Don’t it always seem to go, you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone.”

So... understand what you have... and always imagine the possibility of losing it. You can live in fear and not be afraid. The moral here seems to be think about and appreciate what you have while you have it… and don’t pave paradise, or at least if you do don’t put up a parking lot. Try to be objective. Everyone thinks they’re objective to some degree. Sees themselves like a sunrise over the earth.
I hear the honk on the street.

I approach the green car, under the sun, beneath the green trees. Not much to say but plenty to feel on this day of days.

The voice that speaks is never the same as the voice before it speaks. It digs. The means determine the ends. The tongue is a rudder that steers the whole ship^{^[5]}.

Doris Lessing wrote that “All sanity depends on is this: that it should be a delight to feel heat strike the skin, a delight to stand upright, knowing the bones are moving easily under the flesh.”

I think that’s right, and it has something to do with hope. You can count your blessings… but you can also bless your blessings.

(A SHOT OF PUTTING A BOX OF BOOKS IN THE TRUNK, SHOWING THE TITLE OF SEVERAL BOOKS, A BOOK ON ORGONE ENERGY BY WILHELM REICH, A BOOK ON THE MIND, THE IMMORTALIST BY ALAN HARRINGTON, THE REBEL BY ALBERT CAMUS)

What makes you able to hear things the good way, and think the right way, besides rationality, is hope. Hope in the right sense of course. Hope is important. Hope is the great barometer for people like us.

Luckily, in the right circumstances, and with a little applied sanity, hope is a natural resource, available from the passing of time into new possibilities, and the things around us that are generative of newness.

On the highway there’s light traffic. We have an open road and put on some music for the drive. An mp3 mix cd in the car’s stereo, volume high medium. It’s an indie rocking morning. The Get Up Kids are playing the song ‘Stay Gold, Ponyboy.^{^[6]}” I think to myself… stay gold… gold is of the densest of elements, it’s a brilliant shield. From the corruptedness. If you can rebuild the elements of gold around you, and live within that feeling, at the core, you can remain, stay, become again… gold.

I light a cigarette and lean back in my seat, thinking of a commercial I heard on the radio the other day for tires that said something to the effect of “they’re the only thing between you and the road,” autosuggesting the perception that you are your moving car, and I’m running along the open road sixty miles an hour.

"Strange morning." (Drawing: It’s one of those weird times where the sun is out, in this case just rising, but it’s also raining.)

We leave at dawn headed east, to Chicago, a city known for its public transportation, wind, and cold.

I've built it up in my mind as a dream city, full of neo-Sartrean-worthy coffee shops, hole-in-THE-wall music clubs, angel headed hipsters, madmen bums and the like.

Setting my shuffling ipod running through the car's tape deck, I turn up the volume, imagining a corresponding hope slightly rising inside me, that there's some truth to the perceived symbolism: driving off into the sunrise.

As we cross the Poplar St. Bridge, I look back on St. Louis, the city I've always called home.

I think to myself I'm starting a new stage in my life, and I've tried to package my life up to this point as neatly as the artifacts from that life are packaged in the back of my car.

But whenever you try and package the past like that, the packaging inevitably bleeds.

Here I find myself, 19 years old, moving out on my own for the first time. It's about time. I sit behind the wheel, clothed in knowledge, belief, predilection, loves, and the scabs, scars, and bandages of a lifetime, looking out at the always passing present, wondering what to make of all of it. All this this.

I suppose all I can know is what this blood, these feelings, this life, mean to me.

Josh (who‘s wearing two watches): “Five minutes before seven. Or five minutes after. Whatever works for you.”

Briton: “You think you’re the train man? In this car, I make the rules.^{^[8]}”

Briton: “I was wondering if Batman and Alfred ever camp out down there and roast marshmallows. Like, maybe make a tent by throwing some sheets over the supercomputer and the big chair.”

M’am, do you have any idea what may be the cause of his absense? Was there a family conflict? Is he lost? Did he wander away at some time?

Josh: “Well, start thinking about Chicago. And maybe seeing some cows, or, frequently photographed barns^{^[9]} or something on this trip.”

(Briton thinking: He's trying to cheer me up. I appreciate it, but the mood of the morning is drawing me into the memory of them and I go into it willingly...

I read a book on memory once that said whenever you recall a memory, depending on how you think about it, and leave it, it might be changed the next time you recall it...

I'm so afraid to lose what I have left of them. But I'm so afraid to feel what I lost of them.

I try to pull up images of us together, something tangible, but all I get are shaky polaroids, hazy solid-light feelings... and the gravity of that night.)

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"He was like, Mr. Sharma, could you please refrain from dancing in your desk, I'm trying to teach you how you fit into the evolutionary schema.

And I was like, 'Hey, Mr. Kenneth, if I can't dance, I don't want to be part of your evolution.'"

"Hh Heh. Yeah, I know, but he got all pissed off and I had to explain that it was the Emma Goldman quote and he still held me after class."

"That's fucking bullshit." from Elizabeth in the backseat. "You deserve extra credit for like, extracurricular wit generation."

"Does someone actually know where we're going? I mean, someone is still in possession of the map and is paying attention right?"

You know how adults are always telling teens, "it's not the end of the world"? Well, in this case they would be wrong. A world ended.

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Well, actually I woke up in an ambulance, but I didn't really know who I was, where I was, what was happening, or why I felt like I had been in a fist fight with God. Concussions can do that.

We were hit on the highway from the back-side, and car upon car spun out of control.

Mark Sharma, Elizabeth Marie, Abbey Archer, and Colin Phillips all died that day. And Mary Kidd... Mary Kidd...

I can't do justice to them with words. But silence gives consent. Colin was more than just a genius super-scientist. Elizabeth a song; a living, harmonious cataclysm. Abbey a dystopian dream girl. They were flesh and blood, light and sound. Abbey was that time at the park when we jumped into the duck lake and nearly froze to death. That smile like the sun so close overhead and its not fair. Elizabeth Marie is a wry grin all the time at a restaurant one night shortly after we met. Mark the feeling of a friend at your back when some stupid asshole wants to fight. They're these letters I have in a little box. These videos of us hanging out.

(IMAGE OF KID SITTING UNDER THE SUN, LOOKING UP AT IT WISTFULLY. LIKE THAT ANIME SHOT OF O-REN-ISHII IN KILL BILL ON THE ROOFTOP.)

Though I may never forgive the world, I've also learned it's true what they say, that it's no one's fault.

"That's just the way it is." Except, there's a bit of a fault there if you ask me.

Like I said, I woke up in the hospital. Mary Kidd was still alive, but that turned out to be a false alarm. If there was any justice in the world the sky would have split.

My wrist and hip had been broken in the car accident and I was in an external fixator for my hip to heal. The nurse moved me into the room next to her. I spoke to her. I told her I loved her. I told her I would always love her. She said she knew. "I love you too." I could see her in there, wondering at what she was saying, so afraid, but a part so strong, a part of her that never got fucked over on the way to that concert, a part of her that now saw everything... a part of her that saw herself in me even. I held on to her hand and told her it would be alright. I told her again I loved her. She said she wanted me to kiss her. I asked the nurse to move me. "You're not supposed to," she said. "I said do it!" She propped me up so I could reach Mary. I brushed back her hair and kissed her on the forehead, closing my eyes, holding back the tears, then kissed her lips softly. My reach held her so soft and hard and I wished the world would end. And then she said something I may never fully grasp. The way she said it. I don't understand. I don't understand anything. I don't want to understand. Some things… Some things. She was looking in my eyes like before, like never before, and she said, starting to cry... "don't leave me."

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It's been a year and a half. A year and a half of trying to live. Of grief. Wondering how I could live on without them. Wondering if I should. Making a mission out of fighting death, a meaning out of bringing new life into life in their names. Trying to find out who I am in all this mess and what the world could possibly mean. Looking for a sacred center. Digging through paradise's lost and found. All the things lost along the way... all the things still here but that have dis-solved along the way, like mysteries neglected...

Do you have any names, addresses, or phone numbers of friends and associates of his?

We were in a band together my sophomore year, his senior. Our name was 'The Selves,' named mainly for Josh’s tendency to methodically look at himself from different angles and dissect and analyze what he saw. He was writing most of the lyrics then, being about two years older than I. I was still unsure of my voice, looking for a certainty that I hadn’t yet realized could come once you realized that the certainty comes in the search for your certainty. I think we were good. We played out fairly often, and recorded one album in a friend's basement studio. “Most Valuable Strayer.” Our music was strange. We tried for a coherent sound of our own design, something of our own, which always has a hint of youthful daring in it as long as you're true. We had pretty many influences, of course, but we always transformed them in the fires of our own view.

We re-met about two weeks ago... at a small bar, or café I guess, ‘Joe‘s Café‘... him back home from college in Chicago. Only I found out he dropped out about eight months before that. He got a job working for a publishing company, his official title being ‘Information Master.‘ (I love this part.) Basically he solves problems for a living. If you're writing about a certain something and you need something to happen involving something else, he'll tell you how it can happen if it's possible. He can solve logical problems, ethical/plot problems, meta-political problems. Sometimes he'll tell you a problem has no viable solution, and that the book in that form is an impossibility. Every once in a while, he'll tell you a problem shouldn't be solved. You pay him for this information, and you take his word. If you don't believe him about a certain finding, that's your problem.

He was recruited for this job after writing a paper for a college course. I should explain what the paper is about, but it’s kind of difficult, in the way that it’s difficult for a surfer to describe a wave he’s currently riding. It… well, Josh is obsessed with symbolism. Playing with the Bible as if it were a Rubix cube, as if if you just twisted the pieces in the right way full color spreads would reveal themselves, he thought that… Christ died at the age of 33, right? So, he thought, maybe there’d be some specific importance in the 33^rd book of the bible.

The 33^rd book is the book of Micah. The name Micah means… “like unto who?“ This prophet’s name, in its elongated form is “Micaiahu”, commonly translated as “Who is like Yahweh?” or, possibly, “He who is like Yahweh.”

Some would argue, reading the text historically or, well, Biblically, that Micah’s message is generated from his opposition to Judean politics, society and manner of worship during the reign of a certain King. However, this was not the focus of Josh’s article, and as Josh showed, not necessarily the focus of the text.

The book of Micah, like any work of art in the hands of an artist, is timeless. It can be applied to any time, to any situation. I don’t think I need to give examples of this having been done, especially in the case of the Bible. But Josh… well, there’s a reason we’re friends you know. This kid took this book of the Bible and applied his reason, research, and thought, and perfect cool-headedness, and showed that… well… it got him the job I mentioned. And his paper was printed in the New York Times. His thesis? The book of Micah is the perfect recipe for a permanent rapture.^{^[10]}

One of my favorite movies, “Serenity,” has a line where a character who has a reputation as a preacher says, “Why is it when I talk about belief you always assume I’m talking about God?” Well, in the book of Micah, Josh pretty much said that about everything, including, “Why is it when I say the word God do you assume I’m talking about some guy named God?”

After hanging out for a few weeks, Josh asked me if I'd like to come live with him in Chicago. We'd find a new apartment to suit the two of us, get settled in, then take over the city, the world. I was in love with Chicago... I am in love with Chicago... and there was a terrible lack of things to be in love with in my life. So I decided to go.

Our mutual friend, Tim Davis, from a compatriot band back in our music playing days was looking for a ride up to Chicago so we asked him if he’d like to tag along.

We packed out bags and hit the ever-loving road. (Sorry, I just wanted to use the phrase ‘ever-loving’ in some way.) And that’s where we are now, headed to our new domain , on the ever-loving road.

Josh: "Can you imagine what Lewis and Clark felt like when they first drove out of St. Louis?"

Briton:"Yeah, sure. A bit struck by the openness of it all, I'd bet. They probably felt like true explorers... big knives, leather sheaths, the wilderness surrounding them, instructing them, an evulagation on the order of the divine to man to them. Making the map as they go... Being in the map. The spirit of the country behind them, in them."

Josh: “I would have thought it was Walt Whitman reciting poetry in a broom closet.”

Josh: “But the center does hold. And that’s all we do, is hold the center. We’re at the source always, heading into the future… the source moves with us…”

Josh: “We are the tenders of the light. We are the stewards of being… In the world… We float on, stirthing, thirsty for more, playing out the physics of immortality here on earth like it’s no big deal… The source AKA You looking in the present, scanning for more life, real moments…

(Billboard that says “Come back to the fold” and a road sign that says “8” before that, so it seems to say “8 fold“ but not obvious obvious)

(Billboard: “Finally a bank that understands your needs.” MONEY FLYING ALL OVER THE PLACE, coming off the billboard)

Briton: “I feel like the Buddha. … I feel like I’ve been focusing on such certain things the past months… like life in my brain specifically. I made this poster for my wall that says “Life does not exist in your brain… Your brain just makes it possible.”

Briton: “I’d just forgotten, or hadn’t realized until we decided we were moving that people are out traveling the country, living it up all the time while I’m whiling away the hours thinking of just the five feet in front of my brain. Pull off the road, I’ve got to go sit under a tree.”

Briton: “Forget about the tree. *Lights cigarette* I have achieved enlightenment.”

Josh: “That you’re supposed to just achieve enlightenment, like it’s a one time thing and then you’re enlightened for all time.”

Briton: “Well, you’ve got to keep your Zippo fueled, and replace the flints when they run out.”

Briton: “To me, enlightenment is a Zippo lighter. And a Zippo lighter is enlightenment.”

Briton: “First of all, it’s a device whose primary purpose is fire… fire creation, fire sustainment, and fire delivery. The element the soul is most often compared to is fire.

“And there‘s Heraclitus, who thought the primary element was fire, actually believing everything to be in a state of constant change… So fire being an image for change, which goes back to our talking about Enlightenment being just a one time thing vs. lasting ever after.”

Briton:“Right. And then there‘s the fact that there are thousands of styles of Zippo‘s, but one essence. Sound familiar? And each lighter is an individual, a soul if you will.”

The first zippo was manufactured in 1933. 33 being the age at which Christ died. They became popular in the United States military, especially during World War II… when the company ceased production of lighters for consumer markets and dedicated all manufacturing to the U.S. military. Think about this… the lighter, a symbol of relief… the flame… the soul again, for the soldiers in WWII… and this lighter coming into popularity in WWII… this “great war”, fought over where reason meets unreason, where love, compassion, and the human must enter into the equation… and this lighter… within the opposition, the core of the duality, the contrast… enlightenment coming out of the mire of the world…”

Briton: “(BRITON TAKES OUT HIS ZIPPO AND PERFORMS THE ACTIONS, TALKING WITH THE CIGARETTE IN HIS MOUTH, DIFFERENTLY ILLUSTRATED LETTERING IN BALLOON) You hear that flick. That light. The tricks even with it. The click of the cap closing as the smoke emerges from the mouth. It’s a satori moment.”

“Every zippo comes with a “forever” guarantee: if a Zippo lighter breaks, no matter how old or how many owners it has had, the company will replace or fix the lighter for free. It seems they even believe in a type of reincarnation. The only part of a Zippo lighter that carries no warranty is the finish on the outer case and lid. No finish. No ends. No death. They‘re known for lasting, the flame I mean, in harsh weather. And they’re very durable physically. These things are tough. Spirit and mind over matter. As technology has evolved, so has the design and finish of the Zippo lighter, but the basic mechanism of the Zippo lighter has remained unchanged.

“Seasons change, technology or culture may change, but, the zippo, the spirit, the geist, is timeless, is eternal.”

Josh: “Just look at what it’s based on… some guy is ignorant of disease, suffering, and death.

Josh: And then one day he discovers them when he leaves the seclusion of his father’s house. And what does he do? He accepts them. I feel sorry for the guy. He systematically destroyed every impulse in him to real life. He should have been called the somnambulant one.”

Tim: “But he didn’t have any stimuli that would have told him immortality was a physical possibility in this life.”

Briton: “That’s probably true. But still, I totally agree. It’s the same with Christianity. Accepting death. It’s one thing to die nobly, but… to worship the loss of the desire for life… And then what’s this with Buddhism, “all life is suffering.” What kind of first statement is that. That’s a noble truth? No, that’s a bullshit truth. You sit down with your acceptance of death, and that’s where your little enlightenment trip is going to lead, no shit.”

Tim: “But, it could be the right path for people who have an extremely demanding life that puts them in danger or extreme stress. Or through wild changes. Where they need a holy serenity to combat those other aspects.”

Tim: “Or it could be seen as a path to be taken by someone who is extremely virile, searching-minded, and alive… because it’s about not focusing on questions that cannot be answered but instead focusing on the present moment.”

Tim: “I wonder what the Buddha would have done after he achieved enlightenment if he couldn’t have taught.”

Josh: “From ‘Paradise Lost,” by John Milton. Right near the end he says of Adam and Eve, ‘The world was all before them.” It’s one of the most richly polysemous lines in all literature.”

Briton: “I see. That’s good. No, I haven’t read it. What do you think of the Garden of Eden?”

Josh: “I been in there. It‘s all right. I wouldn‘t recommend those places, unless--”

Josh: “There’s a reason the fruit was forbidden. The eating of the apple was the taking of an action which leads to knowledge of good and evil… How do we know things? By experiencing things which give us knowledge… That apple is all we’re ever eating… “Nothing is true. Everything is permitted^{^[16]}”? Everything is true. Nothing is permitted. . .

“What do you think? This is an important conversation, so we should speak correctly.”

Briton:“The truth is always somewhere in between. It‘s always on the street, so to speak.”

“They are out of time, out of space, and not subject to circumstance: Thus, in the soul of man there is a justice whose retributions are instant and entire. He who does a good deed is ennobled. He who does a mean deed is by the action itself contracted. He who puts off impurity thereby puts on purity. If a man is at heart just, then in so far is he God; the safety of God, the immortality of God, the majesty of God, do enter into that man with justice. If a man dissemble, deceive, he deceives himself, and goes out of acquaintance with his own being.

I think character is always known. Thefts do not enrich; alms do not impoverish; murder will speak out of stone walls. The least admixture of a lie -- for example, the taint of vanity, the least attempt to make a good impression, a favorable appearance, -- will vitiate the effect. But speak the truth, and all things alive or brute are vouchers, and the very roots of the grass underground there do seem to stir and move to bear your witness. For all things proceed out of the same spirit, which is differently named love, justice, temperance, in its different applications, just as the ocean receives different names on the several shores which it washes. In so far as he roves from these ends, a man bereaves himself of power, of auxiliaries. His being shrinks… he becomes less and less, a mote, a point, until absolute badness is absolute death. The perception of this law awakens in the mind a sentiment which we call the religious sentiment, and which makes our highest happiness, Wonderful is its power to charm and to command.”

“It is a mountain air. It is the embalmer of the world. It makes the sky and the hills sublime, and the silent song of the stars is it. It is the beatitude of man. It makes him illimitable. When he says ‘I ought’; when love warns him; when he chooses, warned from on high, the good and great deed; then, deep melodies wander through his soul from supreme wisdom. Then he can worship, and be enlarged by his worship; for he can not go behind this sentiment. All the expressions of this sentiment are sacred and permanent in proportion to their purity. The affect us more than all other compositions. The sentences of the olden time, which ejaculate this piety, are still fresh and fragrant. And the unique impression of Jesus upon mankind, whose name is not so much written as ploughed into the history of this world, is proof of the subtle virtue of this infusion.”

Josh: “Ralph Waldo Emerson. From the speech that gained him his fame.^{^[17]}”

Briton:“According to epistemology, the most agreed upon criterion for something to be counted as knowledge if for it to be a justified true belief.”

Josh: “I just know it’s true… because it’s true inside me. And I believe it. And I‘m justified in believing it because if I didn‘t give credence to it, I wouldn‘t be alive. So, yeah.”

Josh: “You know that feeling, where you’re connected to everything… where everything just flows… where your feet feel like they’re planted in the ground but you have complete mobility… like the Earth moves with you… I think it’s like Samadhi in Buddhism but I don’t know if I feel it the same way.”

Tim: (Looking out back window, like he’s making a too cool, knows too much comment)“Are you trying to tell me I can dodge bullets?”

Josh: “These people are the tree of life. (he points with his fork). Everyone’s the tree of life. That’s the whole secret. When God expelled Adam and Eve he didn’t say it was to keep them from the tree of life, he said it was to keep ‘the way of the tree of life.” It’s all about location. It was just that they couldn’t be in the direct presence of God. But see, you can sneak back in. You can storm the Garden of Eden. If you want to of course.”

Briton: “Didn’t you see those giant rock candy sticks in the gift shop? I’d say we are in the direct presence of God.”

Tim: “But God did say he wanted to keep them from the tree of life so they didn’t become ‘like us’, like God.”

Josh: “If men cease to believe that they will one day become gods then they will surely become worms.^{^[18]}”

Tim: “But still, that has to mean something. It’s practically a straight spoken warning.”

Josh: *leaning back in his chair and flipping his hand out* “Because God’s insane!”

“The concept, of God, is insane! You can’t count to infinity, you can’t use the scientific method on a miracle, and you cannot see the face of God and live.”

Josh: *Using his hands like he’s doling out these blessings on his friends* “Friendship, youth, art and beauty, truth… these are the reasons, gentlemen. Without these we are painters with all dead paint and missing fingers. We see only one sun and continually have to replace it in the sky, and it doesn’t see us. There’s no reason to take photographs. These are the things that settle all scores. Did you ever think about what that means? Settling scores?”

Tim falls back into his chair and lights a cigarette: “So why do you think God kicked us out? I mean, why ‘the way of the tree of life.’ What is the way?”

Briton:“People have to learn things on their own. You learn by living through. You have to live through to make it yours. A world handed to you isn’t yours until you at least get the earth caked on your shoes.”

Josh: “Or better yet have to shovel some around a bit to get it how it should be.”

Briton:“Sometimes you learn the purpose of life by living without reasons for a few seasons.”

Josh: “But you always were the reason… through all of that. You have to be to stay alive.”

Josh: “God is with us, and that is why we cannot have God. That is the truth of all being. That is the truth of the world. You cannot have what you are with. All you have is your self. The rest you must feel, or be. The rest you must love. To possess is to destroy. We each are the tree of life. The tree of life cannot be dead. To have is to kill.”

Briton: “It is because we are God, that we cannot be like God. You cannot be like what you are. The world lives on truth. On capital T Truth. To be like what you are is Bad Faith.^{^[19]}”

Josh: *He leans forward and looks into Tim’s eyes, looks into Briton’s eyes, pulling him also into the gaze, the turns his stare back to Tim*: “We are the sword of the Angel, at the entrance to the garden, which turns every way, guarding the way of the tree of life. Either we are that, … or… well, ask Briton.”

Josh: Tell him about your name.
I think about what he‘s trying to get across, kind of without thinking.
Briton: "Oh." *takes his Batman hat out of his back pocket and slides it onto his head.* *He looks at Tim*: "You know my name is Briton Miles Davis. Everyone always assumes I’m named after the musician and I’m usually like “Yeah, like the musician.” Well, when I was fourteen my Dad told me about my name, about the real story behind it.

My Dad, Marshall F. Davis is a writer. Maybe you’ve read him. Maybe not. He's the kind of writer that makes a living with his craft and is on the shelves at the chain stores, but not everyone knows him or knows they should know him. I like his stuff, but then I have sort of a weird relationship with it since I'm his son.” Gesturing like, you see.

“Way back at the end of high school for him, he was planning on writing a coming of age story about one of those disaffected genius types... a Holden Caulfield, only, well... J.D. Salinger is to Holden Caulfield as Marshall F. Davis is to Briton James Miles. That was to be the main characters name. To me, at least from my point of view, now, Holden's main attribute is his guard uniform for the watchtower he lives in. To an objective viewer with a sense of beauty, the uniform shines like… a Kerouac work-shirt on a parking lot attendant in a teenage purgatory on a personal salvation road outside a simple building everyone's trying to get into that everyone calls in a different voice, 'The Truth.'

Caulfield sits in his complicated watchtower, guarding and watching out for a lot of complicated things. He's guarding the love in-(ti)-mates, watching out for phonies, defending his idealistic self against an imperfect world, and holding tight to something at the core... a sacredness that is un_____able.

My father had never lost Allie... His book, his character Briton Miles, was going to be about the baseball mitt with the quotes written in green ink so his brother had something to read when he was in the field, only the “brother” was still alive.

He was going to try to solidify the feeling of smashing out the windows in the garage over the stupidity of losing loved ones before losing the loved one, all without breaking anyone's hands or landing anyone in a mental institution.

Briton: “It seems to me the world always gets to you before you can make such a statement... maybe the very act of trying to solidify that feeling causes you to feel the loss that comes along with it... the loss of what? Innocence? The cept of True love? Who knows... Maybe a book founded on youth gets old. Maybe you have to see the oldness of the world and then do everything you can to write about youth, to become in truth young. Maybe that's how this works.”

Tim: “But there’s life… there’s just straight up life, you know? There’s the good stuff.”

Briton: “My Dad got called up to fight in the Vietnam War before he could write his coming of age story. When he got back, or the new him that got back got back, he had changed, and the novel changed into a story of a kid who was busy trying to come of age, trying to come to an understanding of himself and his place in the world in that time and place, when then the world tried to tell him the meaning of his time and place for him, in the worst way, and I don't really understand how all that went, or what it all meant, the time period I'm talking about now, though I've read a lot about it in trying to figure out my own coming of age story. I figure it was like the world collectively asking 'what does it all mean?' like a blip in a thought process, a big, graspingwonder blip, and maybe just now we're beginning to reflect, not necessarily back on that time period, but on ourselves as we are, in the whole picture.

My father decided the name Briton Miles sounded too innocent for such a story. But he decided to save it for another time. When he and my Mom got married in 1979, they decided they would name their first kid, or first boy rather, Briton. He wanted me to have it better. I guess part of it was also a kind of hope for the world, that it might have learned something from that time. So, here I am, and here we are.”

Briton: “We should have had this conversation at the Olive Garden. *he laughs*. It would have fit better. Maybe not.”

Josh: “But ‘The Cracked Barrel’ is more of an ‘on the road’ type of place.’

Briton: “Oh… I’ve got a job lined up at a bookstore. I’m going to work there part time and in the remaining free time Josh and I are going to be trying to play out with our band.”

Tim: “We do alright. You guys can get backstage at the Chicago show if you want. It’s nothing at all.”

Briton: “Might have to take you up on that. I was planning on making an effort to get out to the show.”

Tim: “If you guys are trying to get a show in Chicago, we play up there fairly often, we can try to set something up to get the word out.”

Briton: “Right now we’re just trying to get some good music going, we’ll start to worry about a larger audience once we… you know. ”

Briton:“Well, what’s important is to feel connected to the music. To care about it. Not to just fling it wildly out of you and hope it catches hold somewhere. What’s important is to remain connected with it so that if and when it connects to someone else… well, what matters is that the art is a part of your life. We‘re still working on developing our core.”

Briton:“Because it’s not just something to do… having something to do is nice… but having something to care about… that’s what keeps you alive. Care keeps you involved in the world. Care keeps you alive alive… you know what I mean? Care keeps you young.”

Josh: “You don’t know what state you’re really in until you try to write a song.”

Briton: “You know all those eastern philosophy, new age books and movies and… whatever?
“How they talk about emptying your mind and then just being the moment?

Briton: “But paradox is one of the tenets of the universe. You can be connected and separate at the same time.
“I mean, life doesn‘t stop. We always feel something more.”

Briton: “I know you can’t just love everything. The world’s not perfect. And loving everything’s not perfect anyway.”

I was dead for a really long time along with them. They were so much a part of me before I even really knew who I was. And so when I lost them I had to really figure out what I was doing here, and what I meant to myself. I kept their memory alive for a very long time. And I still think of them. But things change. I can’t make a funeral out of my life.

I’m a man of action, and death stops you cold. All I can do is.. Wish. And think of them… somehow, or... other. As an immortalist I don’t have the ‘comfort’ that one day soon(backward italics-and add footnote) I will be joining them. I’m going to live here, with their memory, for one hundred years, in solitude. So, I did the best I could in surviving, and I’m still doing the best I can. I…

I don’t underestimate the power of my emotions, and my love of love. Sometimes it’s hard to stay a good person, but that’s the only hope we have.

A stylistic syringe sink-hooked into a mainline... I need the blood flow... To lust after the elusive buzz always wanting to buzz zum more... That’s why I bury my face in books, lap the words and worlds like a teenage true lover... There’s so much to see, we’re blinded with sight.. God, I want...

(BRITON STEPPING OUT OF THE CAR, STEPPING ONTO A COPY OF THE COMIC BOOK HE’S PRESENTLY APPEARING IN ON THE GROUND, SEEING IT, THEN TALKING ABOUT IT AND THE COMIC YOU’RE READING AT THE SAME TIME, KIND OF KNOWINGLY KNOWINGLY)

But this? Words on a page are just words on a page till your eyes say differently… but then again, it‘s all alive; still, all this is is ink and paper… run… go… its best use is as fuel… to live is the paramount thing…

He turns toward his new home and softly thinks to himself… “The things we love are only as good as the love we have for them.”

^{^[1]} Rita Rudner

^{^[2]} Sain - a piece of writing “says” something, whereas a song “sains” something, the difference between speaking or telling and singing something.

^{^[3]} ‘Simon and Garfunkle’ - ‘Hazy Shade of Winter’

^{^[4]} Let’s not forget her.

^{^[5]} Lyrics from the band ’Brand New’ from their song ’Play Crack the Sky’

^{^[6]} A reference to ‘The Outsiders’ by S.E. Hinton

^{^[7]} For those unfamiliar with Comic book terminology, a frequently used technique, a “Splash page” is one of the opening pages, or the opening page is a full page image-scape (continued) introducing the comic, often with the title of the issue and name of the comic prominently featured.

^{^[8]} ‘The Train Man, a character from the movie ‘The Matrix Reloaded’, in a scene where the main character Neo is trapped between two worlds.

^{^[9]} A reference to a phenomenon of landmarks being famous for being photographed many times, leading to them being photographed more times; really a reference to Don DeLillo’s novel ‘White Noise’

^{^[10]} This article will soon be written by me, coming soon to theneonheart.com in the Non-Fiction section

^{^[11]} ‘The Green Automobile’, A poem by Allen Ginsberg

^{^[12]} Briton and Josh quoting lines from ‘Dead Poets Society’.

^{^[13]} Modest Mouse song lyric

^{^[14]} The Noble Eightfold Path is, in the teachings of the Buddha, declared to be the way that leads to the end of dukkha, or suffering. Essentially a practical guide of bringing about ethical and meditative discipline, the Noble Eightfold Path forms the fourth part of the Four Noble Truths, which have informed and driven much of the Buddhist tradition. (from Wikipedia)

^{^[15]} Cato the Elder (234 BC - 149 BC)

^{^[16]} Hassan-I Sabbah

^{^[17]} Ralph Waldo Emerson Delivered before the Senior Class in Divinity College, Cambridge, Sunday Evening, July 15, 1838

^{^[18]} Henry Miller

^{^[19]} Ostensibly an idea of Jean-Paul Sartre’s

^{^[20]} quoting from Kerouac’s on the road in a Kerouac-impersonating voice.

JOSHUA Gender: Masculine Usage: English, Biblical Pronounced: JAH-shu-wa, JAW-shwa [key] From the Hebrew name (Yehoshu'a) which meant "YAHWEH is salvation". Joshua was one of the twelve spies sent into Canaan by Moses in the Old Testament. After Moses died Joshua succeeded him as leader of the Israelites. The name Jesus is derived from this name.	BRITTON Gender: Masculine Usage: English Pronounced: BRIT-un [key] Derived from a Middle English surname meaning "a Breton".
AURÈLE Gender: Masculine Usage: French French form of AURELIUS	AURELIUS Gender: Masculine Usage: Ancient Roman Roman family name which was derived from Latin aureus "golden, gilded". Marcus Aurelius was a Roman emperor and philosophical writer. This was also the name of several early saints.
TIMOTHY Gender: Masculine Usage: English, Biblical Pronounced: TIM-u-thee [key] From the Greek name (Timotheos) meaning "honouring God", derived from (timao) "to honour" and (theos) "god". Saint Timothy was a companion of Paul on his missionary journeys and was the recipient of two of Paul's epistles that appear in the New Testament. According to tradition, he was martyred at Ephesus after protesting the worship of Artemis.	TIMON Gender: Masculine Usage: Ancient Greek, Biblical Other Scripts: ??µ?? (Ancient Greek) Pronounced: TIE-mun (English) [key] Derived from Greek (time) meaning "honour, esteem". This is the name of the main character in Shakespeare's tragedy 'Timon of Athens'.